A LETTER FROM OUR BOARD CHAIR AND PRESIDENT AND CEO

To Our Loyal Listeners and Supporters,

Around the family dinner table, at the office with colleagues and out with friends, people are talking about what they are listening to – be it a concert from Carnegie Hall on WQXR, an investigative news story on WNYC or a newly released podcast that shares a compelling story. We take great pride in knowing that the programming produced by New York Public Radio is setting the agenda for conversations that matter here in New York and around the world.

This year, WNYC marked the 90th anniversary of its first broadcast in New York City. Throughout the decades that followed, New York Public Radio has served the public by providing a source for independent news, by acting as an incubator for new ideas and new voices, and by telling powerful narratives that become the topic of our daily conversations. Those conversations – whether they happen on-air with our hosts; on social media; or in person with friends, family and neighbors – create an engaged community and active citizenship. They demonstrate the important role that public radio plays in our society. In Fiscal Year 2015, we were honored to deliver programming that got people talking.

Among many other things in Fiscal Year 2015:

New York Public Radio was honored with two George Foster Peabody Awards for broadcast excellence – one for enterprise journalism on “Bridgegate” and political power in New Jersey, and one for a Radiolab episode that explored the 60-word sentence authorizing the use of force in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11.

WNYC participated in an unprecedented collaboration in public mediathat brought together WNYC, NPR, PBS and WETA to explore cancer. This multimedia examination looked at the shifting science and economics of cancer treatment and its impact on individuals and families. WNYC presented “Living Cancer,” a 10-story national radio series distributed by NPR that served as the companion piece to the television documentary Ken Burns Presents: Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies, produced by WETA and aired by PBS stations across the nation.

With support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, WNYC convened the first-ever women’s podcast festival, “Werk It: How to Be a Grown Ass Podcaster.” The invitation-only festival brought together some of the most innovative people working in audio, digital media, and the arts to share best practices, to pitch new ideas, and to cultivate the next generation of women’s voices in podcasting and in public radio.

Throughout Fiscal Year 2015, WQXR’s live broadcasts and special programming such as “Bachstock,” a 30-day festival showcasing Johann Sebastian Bach’s music, created energy and excitement for classical music. Also this year, the instruments collected from WQXR’s first-ever Instrument Drive were refurbished and distributed to the music programs in New York City schools. Over time, the instruments placed through this effort will benefit more than 50,000 New York City public school students. We are gearing up for our next drive to keep the momentum going.

Our impact and achievements over the past year were made possible thanks to the generous support of individual donors, institutions, foundations and sponsors. In the pages that follow, we are pleased to share our Fiscal Year 2015 report with you.